Biological Diversity
by AgentMaryMargaretSkitz
Summary: Future Fic- Ray and Lily take their son to the library.


**This was inspired by a post on Tumblr and the response of misscrazyfangirl321 to it by saying it fit Raily. I'd link it here, but Fanfiction is annoying about that. AO3 would let me though. But this is just some family fluff that grabbed me by the ankle and told me to write it.**

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Trips to the library were not uncommon for Ray and Lily these days. However, the purpose of this one was different. STAR Labs had intercepted a transmission from the Waverider asking them to find a book in the Central City Library. Lily had volunteered with Ray to go find it and figure out why the current Legends were in need of it. So she and Ray had taken Michael with them to the library.

Lily had gone to hunt down the book while Ray took their four year old to the children's section of the library. Finding the book hadn't been too hard, but its position on the highest shelf was a little annoying. Still, she did manage to get it down from there. With the dust that coated the top of it, Lily doubted that anyone had gone through it in a while. Tucking it under her arm, she left that area of the library and went to find her husband and son.

Ray was with Michael over by the windows of the vast room. Both were seated side by side one of the couches in there. One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish was between the two of them. As Lily got closer, she could hear Ray reading aloud to Michael. The little boy was staring at his father as he read in different voices. Lily lifted her book up as Ray saw her coming towards them. He grinned over at her as she settled down on the other end of the couch.

"Some are fat, and some are thin," Ray said to Michael, turning back to the book. "The fat one has a yellow hat."

"Fish can't wear hats," Michael protested. "They're too little for them."

Lily smiled as she opened up the book she'd retrieved. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. If anything, it seemed to be an account of biological phenomena in the twentieth century. She sharpened her focus on the context, hunting for anything strange and unusual.

"Here are some who like to run. They run for fun in the hot, hot sun."

Even with her nose in the book, Lily could practically see Michael's nose scrunching up. "The fish at the zoo don't run."

"Dr. Seuss just made that up," Ray replied. "Fish don't really run."

Lily peered up from the book to meet his eyes. The words 'in this timeline' were unspoken for the end of his sentence. That adventure on the Waverider had been all too memorable. Lily no longer questioned Mick's fear of giant toads since then.

Going back to the book, Lily flipped to the next page. Still nothing jumped out at her as she went through those pages. She turned to the next page, which was about cane toads and how they were brought to Australia to control the cane grubs. They hadn't gone after the grubs and just produced like crazy instead. A few pictures were on these pages, one of which featured a group of people standing beside a desk. Two of the men in it were none other than Rip Hunter and Nate Heywood.

She read on, all attention on the paragraphs to try and pick out a clue. Something must have happened with the toads.

"Some are high and some are low," Ray read on to Michael. "Not one of them is like another. Don't ask us why. Go ask your mother."

"I wanna ask her," Michael proclaimed before scooting over to Lily. "Hey, Mother?"

Lily was still hyper-focused on the passage, which had now gone into the spread of the toads and how they could ravage homes. Still, she did register the question. "Hm?"

"Why is no fish like another?"

"Biological diversity," shot out of her mouth immediately.

A loud snort came from their left. Lily looked up quickly to see a librarian sinking behind the shelf, a hand clapped over his mouth. She then realized what she just told her son, who was now frowning at her. Ray grinned over at her. Lily shrugged, although she felt herself blushing a little.

"What's biological diversity?" Michael asked.

"It's how animals you see are different from other ones," Lily explained. "Even if it's in the same species."

"Oh," Michael nodded before moving back over to Ray.

When they left the library, volume checked out along with a few other books, Lily leaned against Ray. Michael was skipping ahead of them a little. To the average passerby, they looked like a normal family. No one would have ever suspected that she hadn't always existed in the timeline, or that Ray was the Atom, or that they had traveled to multiple eras in a time ship from the future.

"I've got a feeling he's going to be bringing up my answer again," Lily told him. "No way that we've heard the last of it."

"He's got your brains," Ray told her. "Of course he'll remember it."

She smiled and looked down at the book. "I blame the content. Cane toads and their introduction into Australia."

"Huh."

"That's what I thought," Lily agreed. "Why do you think they're there? And what's the problem with the toads?"

"Virus from the future?" Ray suggested. "Someone genetically altered some?"

"Whatever it is, they'll figure it out," Lily said as they caught up the Michael. "Hopefully."

"Not as quick as they can with you on board," he told her.

Lily grinned and kissed him. "You flatter me, Dr. Palmer. Now let's get this to STAR Labs."

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 **The cane toads thing comes out of a biology lecture, save for the ravaging homes part. I might have been writing this during a video.**

 **Reviews=Love**


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